Progression framework
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We have a single progression framework regardless of your profile and specialization (product management, product design, software engineering, hydraulics, etc), but expectations on each level may vary depending on your profile.
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Your position in the framework is defined by your impact and the responsibilities you are tackling, not only your ability. It is not only about having a certain skill or experience. It must be actively used on a daily basis and have a positive impact on the team, and the product.
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You’re expected to grow and progress at your own pace. Depending on your experience, knowledge and personal situation, you will be able to progress at a different speed, and that is ok.
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You decide if you want to try to handle more responsibilities, and the team will support you.
Assessment of impact
The single most important thing for your progression in Qatium is your impact on the company. We can sum up the entire system by describing the impact we expect employees to have as they progress.
When we talk about impact, we’re talking about making a difference in that area that we would reasonably mention to an outside observer.
Impact levels
We identified the following levels of impact. Qatium’s main goal is delivering our product so we measure direct and indirect impact in reference to that goal, regardless of your role/team.
Task: Your work has a consistent impact on the delivery of specific and well defined tasks. You coordinate and have an impact on the day to day of the people that work together with you on those tasks. Your work is relevant and would be mentioned in project coordination meetings.
Project/Problem: Your work has a consistent impact on all the projects/problems you participate in. You coordinate, influence and have an impact on the day to day of the people working on those projects/problems together with you. Your work is relevant and would be mentioned in roadmap meetings.
Product/Team: Your work has a consistent impact on the whole product development. You impact and influence the roadmap and delivery. You coordinate and have an impact on whole teams. Your work is relevant and would be mentioned in company-wide meetings.
Organization: Your work has a sustained impact on the whole organization and its business goals.
In traditional organizations, most individual contributors have an impact at the Task level. Because of our organizational model, we need most of the team to have a Project/Problem level of impact or above.
Definitions
To help us assess that impact level, we are asking ourselves how we are impacting on six different aspects. We believe that all those aspects can be assessed regardless of your role but depending on your role, what we understand as “solution”, “problem”, “project”, “task”, “team”, “customer” will have a slightly different meaning.
Execution impact: What qualities do we expect from the solutions you deliver?
Business Alignment: How do you use your understanding of the company’s strategy to deliver better outcomes? How do you improve the outcomes your team provides to your team’s customers?
Interacting with Others: To what extent do you coordinate with others effectively to deliver your work? Who is acting on the feedback you provide regularly as a part of your work?
Autonomy & Ambiguity: What kinds of direction do you need to deliver your work? How do you contribute to project and roadmap planning? What degree of uncertainty are you expected to navigate regularly and successfully?
Problem-Solving: How complex are the problems you solve? When something unexpected happens, how do you handle the situation?
Process Improvement: What kinds of organizational processes do you improve, and how do you improve them?
Impact vs Levels
We’ve been talking about 4 levels of impact but since moving to the next impact level becomes exponentially difficult, we added some intermediate steping stones along the way.
The equivalence between those steps and the level of impact may vary depending on your profile.
The level of impact on all the aspects mentioned above, as well as the mastery and frecuency with which you are executing actions determine the level in the progression framework.
| Level | Impact level |
|---|---|
| L0 | Task level impact. Establishing impact on tasks |
| L1 | Solidly executing actions with impact on tasks and establishing impact on projects and problems |
| L2 | Solidly executing actions with impact on projects and problems. Still some aspects with impact at the Task level. |
| L3 | Mastered impact on projects and problems level. |
| L4 | Establishing impact on team and product development |
| L5 | Solidly executing actions with impact on team and the product |
| L6 | Establishing impact in the organization and the company |
| L7 | Solidly executing actions with impact in the organization and the company |
How to progress
Since we aspire to a flat organizational model, we expect each employee to be responsible for their own progression and to figure out how they can better contribute to the global effort.
We advise you to rely on your colleagues and look for feedback and coaching from them.
Regardless of that, we have a review process in place to make sure you think about how to progress at least once a year.
Progression review
Goal
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Make sure that your impact is recognized by the team and that the team expectations and yours are aligned.
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Trigger a process where every team member receives feedback from their peers related with the impact on the product to help you guide your progress within the team.
When will it occur?
Your current progression level should be peer reviewed routinely once a year to ensure every team member is at the appropriate level.
For people who have just joined the team, the first peer review will be after 4 months, after the onboarding is finished, to make sure the new member is correctly placed in a level that suits their role.
You can activate your progression review on demand at a different time from the general cadence.
So, a review can be triggered at any moment, if the team or the person thinks they are not where they should be. But the periodic check should be done in any case.
Who participates in the reviews?
Peer reviewers: Several of your peers should be part of this process. Make sure you choose trying to get some balance in terms of seniority and proximity to your daily work and a minimum quantity of peers (2 or 3 people should be enough) in order to minimize bias.
The review committee: A group of people representing the interests of the team and the company. They are tasked with making sure the process is followed and understood. They will be in charge of levelling decisions ensuring fairness and recognition for all team members, as well as financial viability on any level changes.
How does the process work?
The review process has two steps:
- Gathering feedback
- Review
- Levelling
Gathering feedback
You have a self-assessment form and a peer assessment form available to you at all times here.
Note: If you want to use the forms, make sure to create a copy instead of answering the template so the answers are not shared with all the company
The self-assessment form was designed to help you do some introspection aligned with the team values.
The peer assessment form has the same questions and will guide your peers into providing constructive feedback.
Anything written in the form by the peer reviewers will only be read by the other peers or the review committee.
Your peers will gather and write the review feedback, deciding what to share directly with you in order to guarantee privacy.
Review
A review committee will be in charge of the review process for the whole team.
They will take your self-assessment as well as the peers feedback into account and make sure that your contribution is recognized.
The reviewing committee will suggest one or two consecutive levels.
We tend to be optimistic and recommend the higher level but there are risks associated with recommending a higher level if the person is not fully complying with it and it is important that they are aware of them:
- If in the next review they do not fully comply with that level, there is a risk of moving back to a previous level which could be a source of frustration.
- It might feel too long to progress to the next level and that could be a source of frustration.
Levelling
Once you are placed at a level, there is a 1:1 relationship between the level and the compensation you receive.
| Level | Salary |
|---|---|
| L0 | 25.000€ |
| L1 | 30.000€ |
| L2 | 35.000€ |
| L3 | 40.000€ |
| L4 | 45.000€ |
| L5 | 50.000€ |
| L6 | 60.000€ |
| L7 | 75.000€ |
Why?
Are you wondering why salaries, the progression framework and all our people processes are public? There is a good talk that explains the theoretical benefits, but the reality is that you have to see it by yourself working.
Inspiration references
https://www.honeycomb.io/blog/engineering-levels-at-honeycomb